Rumor: New Mac Pro Will Be "Something Really Different"

Remember the days when Apple used to tell us to "Think Different"? Apparently they're taking that notion to heart again for the new Mac Pros expected to appear at WWDC next week. As reported by MacRumors, Mac Pro project manager Douglas Brooks informed RedUser.net forum member Andrew Baird to expect "something really different" with the new units.

Baird received the call from Brooks a few months ago after he'd written an e-mail to Apple CEO Tim Cook regarding the lack of new professional towers from Apple, citing his desire for additional support for graphics cards and expanded memory slots. Brooks' response was decidedly enthusiastic. "You are going to be really glad that you waited [to buy a new tower]," Brooks said. "We are doing something really different here and I think you're going to be very excited when you see what we've been up to. I can't wait to show this off."

Right now, there's little in the way of clues to clarify what "something really different" might mean, especially since Baird didn't learn anything specific from Brooks' reply. There's even a slight possibility that plans have changed. Baird received his call months ago, and the recent updates to MacPros have seemed half-hearted at best, although Tim Cook did confirm to a fan after last year's WWDC that we'd see new Mac Pros in 2013. In February, a French reseller was reported to have learned that new Mac Pros would appear this year.

MacRumors indicated that there may be some truth to the claim, after all. Lou Bourella, an administrator for the 20,932 user-strong Facebook group "We Want a New Macpro," announced that he'd heard that the new Mac Pros would rely heavily on Thunderbolt and have support for dual CPUs, but would lack the internal expandability that seemed so important to Baird. In addition, the new Mac Pros, according to Bourella, won't support FireWire or optical drives.

Considering Intel's timely announcement of the release of their new "Haswell" processors on Monday, there's also a strong chance that the new Mac Pros will contain them, allowing for faster speeds and better graphical performance.